Ms. Marvel is a character in the Marvel comics, recently adopted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ms. Marvel is a superhero alias for Kamala Khan. She is a young Muslim American-Pakistani girl with superpowers. Kamala comes from a middle-class family of four, her parents, Yusuf and Muneeba Khan, and her older brother, Aamir Khan. Her family loves her a lot but is strict and overprotective in a tad misguided way where they think stopping her from doing things or wanting her to do things her way is for her good, not even realizing the issues they are creating for her. Kamala is best friends with Bruno, her closest friend, and Nakia, a fellow Muslim. The character of Ms. Marvel appeared in a Captain Marvel comic in 2013 and later got her own solo comic book series in 2014.
What are Kamala’s powers in the comic?
Kamala in the comic would be something called a polymorph, which is a combination of two other Marvel characters Ant-Man and Mister Fantastic, her powers are somewhere in between. She can expand her limbs the way she likes. As long and as wide as she wishes. She can even lift heavy weights, heal herself and shape shift into other people and inanimate objects.
How does Kamala get her powers in the comics?
One night when Kamala goes to a party of the popular folk, much to her parents and Bruno’s dismay, she is teased and made fun of by her classmates Zoe Zimmer and Zoe’s boyfriend Josh Richardson. Upset, she leaves the party and while walking back home is suddenly hit by the Terrigen Mists, and she is cocooned in. When she breaks through, she becomes an “Inhuman”. By becoming Inhuman, Kamala got the powers that made her a superhero.
What are Inhumans?
Inhumans have quite a history and a past on Earth. Thousands of years ago, Kree, a race of blue-skinned extraterrestrial beings, pretty humanoid-looking creatures, who come from the planet Hala in the Pama system, did experiments with their blood on humans to create a race of mutant soldiers to fight their wars, especially the Kree-Skrull war. But they soon discovered that this could very well turn on them and they abandoned the project. But those experiments led to some random people having a DNA change when in presence of the Terrigen Mist.
Their whole molecular structure changes from the inside giving them powers believed and described as to be for adopting or surviving. These Inhumans all have different powers like Super speed, Shape Shifting, controlling electricity, controlling metal, mind reading, telekinesis, teleportation, immortality, controlling fire, clairvoyance, etc. Kamala is an Inhuman in Comics.
Where else have we seen Inhumans?
If you have ever heard or seen anything on tv related to Inhumans it has to be two shows, Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Marvel’s Inhumans. While the Inhumans show couldn’t garner a lot of audiences and be canceled after season 1, Agents of Shield has been a successful show on the air for 7 seasons and ended in 2020. These shows had the concept of Inhumans at their center.
While ‘Inhumans’ was about their existence in outer space, Agents of Shield has a more grounded approach and had many of its characters as Inhuman, it started in that direction after season 1 as shield disassembled and the show needed a plot for a show named S.H.I.E.L.D. There were many characters like Daisy Johnson, Lincoln Campbell, Elena, “Yo-Yo” Rodriguez, etc, as the Inhuman superheroes. These also draw parallels to the X-Men and mutants as their origin story along with everything is pretty darn similar.
Why is Kamala’s power storyline different from the comics?
This could be because of two things, one, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is not an official MCU entity anymore since MCU parted ways with Joss Whedon although few characters rarely cross into the MCU. Other than that and probably the most important reason is that creators wanted a storyline for Kamala that connected very much with her roots and culture. Having her just be an Inhuman made it pretty generic but a bracelet of her grandmother that gave her powers has a layer of mystery about it. It makes it so much more organic, and real and represents different people around the world. Did her grandmother have powers too? Was that why her mother was neglected and hence has issues with her mother? Does this have to do with another kind of ancestral plains? So many questions which makes it so much more intriguing.
